Friday 1 January 2016 09:45, UK
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says he is not bothered about being called 'a soft German' by Sunderland boss Sam Allardyce.
Sunderland's Jeremain Lens caught Mamadou Sakho with a late tackle during Liverpool's 1-0 win at the Stadium of Light on Wednesday, leading to a clash between the two benches.
Allardyce and Klopp shook hands at the end of the game but disagreed about the punishment dished out to Lens, who was shown a yellow card for the tackle, with Klopp saying the winger should have been sent off.
Asked about that assertion, the Sunderland manager said: "He's a soft German if he thinks that's a red card. It's a yellow."
And, ahead of his side's weekend trip to West Ham, Klopp laughed off the comment, but stood by his opinion that Lens should have seen red.
"Absolutely not a problem - a lot of people have said worse things about me, so it is not a problem," he said.
"I think it's the first time somebody has said this about me so it's cool.
"But if you see the situation, if you see it again then you know that it was not too wrong in judging this moment and that's all I said.
"Mama [Sakho] is still alive and everything is OK but in my opinion situations like this have to be judged different than other things, so if you compare yellow cards in a game and think 'OK, this is yellow', then what's this?
"That's all I wanted to say but I had no arguments with the bench of Sunderland, absolutely not."
Had things worked out differently, Klopp could have been in the home dugout for Saturday's clash at Upton Park.
West Ham co-owner David Sullivan revealed this week he approached Klopp in the summer about becoming Hammers boss but the German wanted a break after leaving Borussia Dortmund.
"In the summer I was not available," said the German. "I was sure I needed a few days for myself without thinking too much about football. That's what I did.
"I'm a lucky guy so there was a lot of interest from different clubs. If West Ham will talk about this then they can do it. It's a really good club but it was the wrong time for all the clubs, so nothing to do with West Ham or what I think about West Ham.
"The Hammers - maybe that is more my second name than soft."
